Bajtek

Bajtek was one of most popular Polish computer magazines at it times.

First issue of Bajtek

Bajtek was started in 1985 by Władysław Majewski, an editor of "Przegląd - Komputer" - insertion added to "Przegląd Techniczny". First issue would be published by "Krajowe Wydawnictwo Czasopism", but because it was started 'ad hoc', it didn't have paper allowance (dear reader - please remember, at this time Poland was a communist country), so it had to borrow paper. The "Sztandar Młodych" (Youth Banner), the newspaper of ZMP (Polish Youth Association - an organ of the communist party for the young communists) decided to lend paper for the Bajtek, and the first issue could be printed. It was continued by three other issues during the 1985 and all 200,000 copies were sold on spot.

The "Sztandar Młodych" editor liked the idea of a computer magazine adresed at the young computer entusiasts (rather than at computer scientists - as all other polish computer magazines, at that time did), so much, that he decided to take it over.

First full-color issue of Bajtek. Also notice the new logo

In the Fall of 1985, the editor of "Sztandar Młodych" Aleksander Kwaśniewski (who will later became President of Poland) become "minister do spraw młodzieży" (Youth minister? minister in matter of youth? Blah, communistic 'nomenclature' is really hard to translate and my english ain't good too), and his first decision, was to make Bajtek, a part of the "Sztandar Młodych" publishing house. Since 1986, until 1989 Bajtek was published by "Sztandar Młodych".

In the year 1989, thanks to the 'Round Table', there were many changes in Poland. One of the most important, was the closing of the Office of Censorship and stoping of the press regulation. With that (and many other changes), Bajtek was divided from the "Sztandar Młodych" and continued on it own, published by Bajtek Publishing House, an co-operative stared by Bajtek redactors. It ran down until 1996, when bancrupcy of Agrobank had bringed Bajtek Publishing House to its knees, eventualy bancrupting it too.

On the beginning, Bajtek had mainly articles about computers from "private import" (more communistic 'nomenclature'), particulary about ZX Spectrum, which became quite popular in Poland in the first half of the 80'ies, mainly because of it's price. In the 1986, there was an advent of 'clans' - subparts of Bajtek, each dedicated to only one machine/producer (All Ataris, All Commodores and so on).

By that time, the popularity of the CPC in Poland was rising. That was, to the simple fact, that CPC were (thanks to CP/M+ and 80 column mode) considered as cheap alternative to IBM PC and other 'professional machines'. Personally, I've heard about CPC applications in scientific calculations, witch on it own shows how this trend was strong. That was because even institutions (like universities) couldn't allow themselfs for substantial amounts of PCs. Poland was (at that time) very poor country and high exchange rates added to the problem. Also, there was COCOM, which meant that really big machines were out-of-reach.

Also, the bulit-in Cetronics port of the Schneiders allowed very easy producing of so called "Publikacje bezdebitowe" ('debitless' publications). Debit is a word from french, meaning 'to sell', 'place of selling' and 'bez-' is a polish word for "without". At that time, if you wanted to distribute your publication, you had to have 'debit', an allowance from Office of Censorship. So, in short, "bezdebitowe" or 'debitless' publications were illegal 'papers' distributed by underground. As they usally been produced in quantities of around 200 copies, The CPC with good NLQ printer and possibly a copier was all you need to fight with communism. Needless to say, CPC became quite popular in underground.

Thanks to that, CPC was noticed by Bajtek and The "Klan Amstrada/Schneidera", a clan for the CPC and PCW computers was also formed. Unfortunatly, because of the typical profile of polish CPC users, polish 'scene' never formed, so there weren't autors in "CPC clan" who could portrey the "Colour in CPC". Most articles was about practical applications of CPC and PCW.

Bajtek continued to publish articles about CPC and PCW until 1994.

(As no other wiki editor could do it, I'll make that list, but this will take some time. Some of my Bajteks were lost when I've moved, others still aren't here... But should be by the end of this year)

1986

[1] - Troughout the 1986, there were some problems with continous publishing, so there were couple of bi-monthly issues

1987

[1] - This article was 12 part, each one had been on diffrent page. I could list 12 entries, each one stating the correct page number, but, as I don't think, any of You collect Bajtek(now or will in the future), I don't see the point.